The Shadow of What I Was
by The Ocean Is My Inkwell
Summary: Alternate ending to Great Expectations, Chapter 59 rewritten. Warning: very sad and emotional ending. Written because I didn't think the published ending fit. Finished.


**A/N: I know this is probably not the conventional ending people usually like, but I just wanted to post it because I really thought this was how Dickens should have ended _Great Expectations_ properly. So, please enjoy! As much as possible, please stick to constructive criticism and not flames. Thanks!**

_**The Shadow of What I Was**_

_Alternate Ending to Great Expectations_

In the employment of Herbert's prosperous business partnership, I visited Joe and Biddy in the comforting old forge as often as I could, which occurred around the holidays. They had had two children by now, a little girl and her older brother, whom Joe claimed in his simple proud way to have named Pip in honour of my likeness.

"Dear Pip," began Biddy one quiet Christmas evening eleven years later after dinner had been cleared away, her voice yet maintaining its wise simplicity, "do you ever still think of—her?"

I immediately understood of whom Biddy spoke so cautiously to me; for my mind ever lingered on her and wondered on her life every night.

"Biddy," I replied, "I do not think I can say that I have completely forgotten her, but I can say that my heart is numb of all ill feeling toward her for anything she might have done to me."

"I am glad it is so," said Biddy quietly, as she played with her baby girl's chubby fingers. "But don't you think it only for your good of you tried to forget her?"

"That is not possible, I believe, my dear Biddy. But all my wild fancies have passed. I do not long for her affections any longer."

Biddy fell silent again, apparently satisfied with the outcome of our brief conversation. And yet, as I gazed in silence into the fire next to Joe smoking his pipe contentedly, I knew that it was my desire to visit Estella's old broken home one last time—for her sake.

* * *

Satis House was silent as I drew nearer to the gate, now hardly recognisable for the obstinate mass of vines encasing the entire door of iron bars. The bolts, however, had rusted and fallen nearly to pieces, and I slipped in silently and began to tour the ruined garden overrun with brambles. It had always been untrimmed when I had come here as a child, but now, without the warmth of human inhabitants kindling life into the leaves, the weeds and twisted vines had grown wild as a forest.

Miss Havisham's possessions—what was left of them—had all been auctioned years ago, and the old place stood abandoned and in ruins. The brewery where I had encountered my friend Herbert as a boy my age had fallen to shambles and was consumed by ivy. The house itself seemed to have been partially demolished of its own volition. No life stirred here.

As I walked about and examined the most familiar parts of the broken house which I remembered most, I came upon Miss Havisham's old sitting room, where oft I had seen her leaning upon the head of her cane and gazing abstractly into the depths of the flames that had taken her life away. I then imagined Estella there, seated at her feet, and busying her fingers with needlework, her cold face ever impassible. Indeed, I wondered what impetus had compelled me to revisit the site of those that had first bred hurt and contempt in me, if only for her sake. Indeed, why should I return for _her_ sake?

"Who is there?"

I turned quickly in surprise. It was a young woman clothed in black crape, her shining dark hair yet covered with a dark bonnet and her cloak not yet unfastened from her shoulders. As I turned my eyes upon her, she lowered her face, as if ashamed of what I might see there. In the strong contrast of light against shadows, I saw the fine cheekbones and skin of Molly's daughter; and yet the stance of her figure was not the same.

"Estella!" I exclaimed, wondering that I should encounter her returning to the place of her despised guardian Miss Havisham.

"Mr. Pip, is it you? It surprises me that you recognise me so swiftly."

"Indeed, Estella, you are greatly changed."

"I wish you could tell me how so, Pip."

I sought the apt words to speak to her. "You no longer seem to carry yourself so…proudly, Estella."

She lifted her gaze, and with consternation I saw that her once hard and beautiful dark eyes were filled now with sorrow. "My beauty has faded to a pitiful state, I think," she replied, not speaking of her former charm with haughtiness, but with an air of forced detachment.

I began to say that I begged to disagree, but she went on before I could speak another word.

"My husband Drummle is no longer living," Estella continued, fumbling with the ribbon of her bonnet for a faltering moment, as if she meant to take it off and seat herself at the window.

I once again began to speak consolation to her, but I could not bring myself to feel compassionate concerning the death of him I had regarded as a stupid boor in younger days, and I kept my peace.

Estella's pale hands fell motionless once more to her sides. "I have thought of remarrying at times, Pip. But my heart is no longer as bold as it ever was before, and I fear that a new husband might only seek to use me as Drummle did."

"He used you cruelly," I completed for her.

"Yes, Pip. And that is why I have remained a widow for these past two years. I cannot see that I have any purpose in my life any longer except to weep and hurt."

I was astonished to find that she spoke so freely now of possessing any ounce of emotions in her heart, the same heart which she had claimed so proudly before that she did not have.

"I have horrid dreams every night of my fate," she said. "And often—every day—I have a wild fancy that perhaps I should forever clothe myself in a gown of black silk and sit before the dead fire coals right here, Pip, where Miss Havisham used to sit when she was with us."

"Miss Havisham raised you that you might escape her own fate, Estella."

"And yet she could not save me," she replied quickly. "I could not feel for others before, and so I could not feel for myself. It is only through this bitter end that I have learned that her lessons were wrong."

I felt sorely for Estella's needs, and yet I knew she was right. "Where do you intend to go, Estella?"

"I intend to go nowhere," she said, that old passionless tone creeping for but a fraction of a moment into her voice again. "Perhaps I _shall_ go somewhere soon, because then I shall die."

"Such black thoughts, Estella! Surely you could live to old age here in the country? Or perhaps in Paris?"

"Glamour does not appeal to me, Pip." Her voice was dead. She had turned to gaze out the window at the ruins around us, but she turned her eyes back to me with a pointed intensity. "Neither do I crave for great expectations."

I felt a peculiar sort of despair mingled with wavering hope for Estella. "Go anywhere, do anything, Estella, but do not stay in this ruined place."

"I am ruined," she said. "Why should I not return to my ruined home?"

"There is nothing here but emptiness."

"My heart is empty."

"This is a broken place."

"Am I not broken?" she returned with a bitter smile. "Is not a broken place the home for a broken woman?"

"Time will heal, Estella. Stay a moment longer out in the sunlight, and you shall soon begin to forget your sorrows."

"I spoke the same words to you the last time we parted, Pip. You did not believe me."

I fell back, no longer with any hope for her sake. "Estella, I have said all that I can ever say. I will only tell you now that all these things I have told you, I have told you not as a man with a broken heart, but as a friend."

Estella turned her fair face to the window once more. I followed her gaze and saw that the afternoon sun's rays had faded and no longer filtered in through the vines and the dust. Soon we would be left in the emptiness with the twilight.

"I am glad you told me that, Pip. Perhaps I shall write to you as often as I can, as friends. It will help me carry on as I spend the rest of my days here."

I took her hand and kissed it in farewell. Then I turned and walked deliberately down the same hall I had trod years ago, not wishing to look back and see her frail figure gazing after me. I set my mind on the future, of the promise of sunlight ahead. And the sound of my footsteps echoed in the empty silence and soon faded away to nothingness.

* * *


End file.
